


in the shapes of angels

by qwanderer



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: 1666 London, Ambiguous Relationships, Genderfluid Crowley (Good Omens), Non-Sexual Intimacy, Other, Wing Grooming, also other missing scenes, hints of autistic Aziraphale, or some ethereal equivalent, that missing scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-04
Updated: 2019-08-04
Packaged: 2020-07-31 04:57:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20109505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qwanderer/pseuds/qwanderer
Summary: Crowley was a demon, he wasn’t allowed to want order and normalcy and kindness and peace. And yet he’d been drawn to Aziraphale, a bright beacon of all those things, from the very beginning.Like a moth to a flame.Just as Crowley had been working away at revealing Aziraphale’s capacity for independent thought, so Aziraphale had been working away at revealing Crowley’s capacity for independent feeling.He wanted this. He’d always wanted this. Not just the closeness, but the… domesticity? Was that the word? It was hard to say, when he’d wanted it since before houses were invented.





	in the shapes of angels

**Author's Note:**

> Hey so uh, I wrote this to be as ambiguous as the show, which is real ambiguous about some things and not at all ambiguous about others. Like, they love each other. Straight up. But are they in love with each other? Is that even a meaningful concept for them? Are they devoted queerplatonic partners? Are they asexual but not averse to the idea of fucking? Are they in love but having trouble figuring out what that means for their physical interactions? Do the interactions in this story represent the equivalent of sex, or romance, or both, or none of the above? Fuck if I know. 
> 
> But it's a boatload of tender intimacy and devotion, so. Interpret it however you desire. Love, your friendly neighborhood aro a-spec author who relates to Aziraphale hard.

For the last few thousand years, Crowley had been trying to teach Aziraphale how to think, how to question, and in return, Crowley had gotten a thorough education in how to care, and how to have affection.

It was bad for them both, Crowley suspected, as she surveyed the plague-ridden state of London in 1666. It would have been better for them to stay away from each other, to stop the spread of these influences. It wasn’t as if questioning had done Crowley any favors, and now she had to care, too? 

It was fucking terrible sometimes, caring.

Crowley knew by now how to win souls for her Master Below, and it sure as Hell didn’t actually require all this suffering. All it really took was a little doubt. A little doubt could be healthy. 

She hated when whole populations suffered and died unnecessarily. She hated when children were the ignorant victims of systems far outside their tiny scope. And most of all, she hated that she cared. She wasn’t supposed to. She was a demon.

This was Aziraphale’s fault, clearly. Crowley hadn’t had any of these inconvenient feelings before the angel had given away his sword in order to ease the suffering of the first humans and their child. Aziraphale, and caring about people, and all that garbage, could all stuff it.

So of course the first person she ran into, walking into one of the newfangled coffee houses London was now riddled with, was Aziraphale.

Aziraphale seemed to have found one of the few bright spots in all this mess of a city right now, or perhaps it was the natural brightness that the angel exuded. Either way the spirits here were high, and the discussion of books, plays and philosophy flowed easily. Against her will, Crowley gravitated to his side.

“Don’t understand why you hang around here when it’s like this,” she said, without greeting, sliding in at Aziraphale’s elbow.

“People need help. They need hope, especially at such times.” Aziraphale frowned, a concerned expression, and part of Crowley hoped that the concern was for her, while it was most likely simply for what evil deeds might be afoot. 

“Why are you here?” the angel asked then, performing a minor miracle to divert attention away from their conversation.

Crowley grimaced. “Only because I’ve got orders.”

Aziraphale’s eyes widened. “You didn’t…”

Crowley laughed darkly, shaking her head. “No. The Lords of Hell couldn’t have imagined this. I barely can.”

“So what is your business in London, if I may ask?” Aziraphale said carefully.

A hissing noise escaped Crowley’s mouth, against her will. “Well, I can tell you this much. You know that bakery in Pudding Lane you like? Better visit it now.” She watched Aziraphale through her deep blue Ayscough lenses. “As in, tonight. Before they close. And, you know, anywhere else in the city you’d hate to miss your last chance to visit.”

This last sentence was delivered in a near-incomprehensible mumble. 

“Oh, dear.” Aziraphale huffed a little in frustrated dismay. “What are you up to now?”

“I have very specific orders. Celebration of the souls gained in the plague and the year containing triple sixes, all that. One thing them Downstairs can easily imagine is fire.”

“No.” Aziraphale’s jaw set. “How many more are going to die?”

Crowley gave him a pained look. “Listen, you know it’s not up to me. This is one of the big ones. I wouldn’t ask you to go near it. Wouldn’t even mention it, except I know how much you hate to lose a good eatery without any warning. If they found out I’d tipped you off…”

Aziraphale gave a long sigh, nodding in acknowledgement of the unspoken consequences. “I suppose it can’t be helped.”

Crowley took a moment to absorb how much she’d really said, what she’d really risked by telling an angel about such a critical mission. When this was over, she was going to hole up somewhere and have a very large drink.

Then she thought about how Aziraphale took the tip-off in stride, and didn’t seem in a rush to do anything about it, and how Crowley trusted him not to take advantage.

And she thought about how she actually didn’t particularly want to be alone. 

“We should get out of here for a bit,” she ventured. “Maybe Scotland. Find a nice little distillery and spend the next decade sloshed.” She looked at Aziraphale, a plea unspoken between her words.

“Scotland sounds nice,” Aziraphale said after a moment’s consideration. “I’ll travel with you, at least. I can’t be sure when my duties will pull me away.”

“Right,” Crowley responded. “That’s settled, then.”

Right now, Crowley would take what she could get.

-⊚-

There were a few factors involved in Crowley’s decision to go about as a woman this decade, aside from the fact that she just felt feminine more often than not these days. One of them was that Crowley absolutely detested wearing wigs. One couldn’t be a fashionable nobleman in this era without one. One could, however, be a very fashionable lady with only a light dusting of powder over her voluminous curls, and that only on the most formal of occasions. 

Another reason was that she appreciated the opportunity to show off her shoulders and collar bones, for the purposes of temptation, of course. Tempting humans was just work, though. Boring. Attempting to tempt Aziraphale? Now that was a game she truly relished.

She wasn’t winning at it, though.

It didn’t help anything that Scotland was cold, especially after spending the summer at points south and travelling up in mid-September. As they climbed up into the coach they’d agreed to share, Aziraphale just tutted at her clothing and said, “If you were human, I'd ask how you can wear that without getting chilled.”

“Who says I'm not?” Crowley asked, raising an eyebrow and wiggling her bare shoulders just a bit.

Aziraphale sighed. “I don’t understand the tendency of women’s fashion to be so incredibly impractical.”

Crowley pouted. “You could always warm me up?”

“Here you go, my dear.” He clasped her hands in his own and transferred quite a large dollop of his celestial warmth directly into Crowley’s body, heating her quite comfortably from exposed shoulders to chilled toes.

“I was actually trying to be lascivious,” Crowley admitted with a moue, “but thanks all the same.”

“I thought that was just a habit of yours at this point,” Aziraphale said, eyebrows climbing. “Surely you didn’t mean to actually suggest… well, that is…”

“That we should engage in carnal activities?” Crowley prodded, smirking. “Sex, perhaps? Well, I certainly wouldn’t say no.”

“You’d actually… want to? With me?” Aziraphale blinked several times. “Why?”

Crowley shrugged expressively, tilting her head to one side to show off the line of her neck to its best advantage. “Well. Humans seem to enjoy it.”

“Oh, so do I,” Aziraphale agreed. “When the occasion seems to call for it.”

“Then why not?” Crowley frowned at him.

“Well,” Aziraphale said, with a look of consternation on his face, “Because… because you’re  _ Crowley _ .”

“Because I'm a demon, you mean?” Crowley interpreted dryly. Of course it would come down to this. It always did, didn’t it?

“Yes. No! I… it would be different with you than it has been with humans. You mean more. You  _ are _ more.” There was a rosy tinge to Aziraphale’s cheeks as he said this.

As Crowley tried to parse this, she realized that this was even less straightforward than she’d realized, and she was going to have to tread carefully.

“Too intense for you?” she asked quietly, no longer leaning so far into Aziraphale’s space. 

“I’m afraid so,” he said, not looking at Crowley. “In… various ways.”

They both looked out the coach windows for a moment, watching the green of the landscape roll by.

“I could hold back,” Crowley offered at last. “Pretend to be human.”

There was another silence, but this time, when Crowley glanced at Aziraphale, she found he was looking at her steadily, eyes full of earnest emotion.

“My dear,” he told her, “that’s the last thing I want.”

Well. That… Crowley was silent for miles afterwards, pondering the implications. 

-⊚-

So here’s the thing:

The shapes of angels are at once more stable and more versatile than human bodies. They’re quite capable of partaking in sex using their human bodies, if they make the effort, and keeping it a strictly physical affair. 

Unless the act evokes strong feelings. 

Angels and demons both have a… fluid relationship with the concept of shape. The human bodies they inhabit while on Earth can be as stable as a human’s, but in addition to that stability being entirely optional, sometimes things… leak out. The stronger the emotion the being is feeling, the more effort it takes to maintain the integrity of their shape inside the human shape.

The most common indicator of strong emotions in an angel or demon is their wings becoming visible. This is because the wings of an ethereal (or occult) being are the connective tissue which join their physical bodies to their true forms. They are wing-shaped because they are made for the purpose of travel, for forming a bridge between the physical and the transcendent. In other words, they are a metaphor. But they are a metaphor that can be seen, and touched.

Aziraphale’s words implied that he wanted to forge a connection between the two of them that went beyond the physical. He wanted them to be able to perceive the other’s shapes, their feelings. That was an intimidating prospect for beings who existed on so many planes at once.

Crowley had never seen Aziraphale's true form, if such a thing could be said to be _seen_ at all, but over the years, he had been able to gain some idea of it.

If it were considered separately from his human body, Aziraphale’s true form might look something like a gimbal with as many axes as there were dimensions. The number of dimensions depended, of course, on the capacities of the observer.

It might seem from external observation that Aziraphale was steady and slow to move, but inside he was always spinning, wheels within wheels.

Crowley was honestly less sure what he would be shaped like, on the same level of existence, but he had a vague idea of a darting ribbon of light, like an afterimage burned on one’s retinas after an inadvisable glance in the direction of the sun.

The kind of closeness that would allow them to touch, not just on a physical level, but in their essences, was something so profound that it was hardly spoken of. There were stories about angels who’d managed to know each other so deeply, from the inside out, that they could overlap almost entirely. Beings who had merged, like colliding stars, burning brighter for it. 

If it had happened, it had happened early on, in the chaos of building the cosmos, and the reverberations of the event blended in with all the other reality warping events at the time.

It probably wasn’t actually possible. And it almost certainly wasn’t possible for an angel and a demon. A being with holiness at their core and another full of cursedness? They’d annihilate each other, wouldn’t they?

Aziraphale and Crowley knew each other well enough already that they knew they could at least make a start. Brush edges, metaphysically speaking. Given time, and care, and patience. But after all, they already had more in common with each other than with their “sides.”

Speaking of which. The real problem here would be their respective superiors.

Something as profound as a bond formed between two cosmic beings at a fundamental level could not be done without causing ripples in the fabric of reality. Sooner or later, Heaven and Hell would find out about it. And they would not simply let it go.

As Crowley considered the prospect over the next few years, it seemed horribly risky. Probably not worth the trouble they’d get into for stealing whatever little moments of connection they could. 

But Crowley also found he couldn’t stay away.

He rescued his silly little angel from the guillotine, even though word of  _ that _ could doom them just as surely. So really, they might as well try and get what they actually wanted, anyway.

The two of them talked around it - they feared speaking certain things aloud, because they were both taboo and intimidating, and, although Crowley didn’t let the word linger too long even in his unconscious, downright  _ sacred _ . But they still managed to communicate enough to know they were generally on the same page.

What they wanted from each other was for Crowley to find a way to weave himself into the deepest places in Aziraphale’s life he possibly could, and for Aziraphale to let him. 

They couldn’t afford to be colliding stars, not with the attention it would bring. Perhaps if it were done incredibly slowly, incredibly subtly. If they learned each other by heart before progressing any further. Took things one tiny step at a time. Maybe then they’d have a chance of going unnoticed.

That would probably be the way Aziraphale would best tolerate the process, in any case. Aziraphale was tricky to get close to.

Aziraphale was a puzzle, a labyrinth, an enigma. But one who was constantly giving little hints. Constantly trying to show Crowley how to solve him. Encouraging here, discouraging there, making little opportunities for Crowley to help him. 

Crowley couldn’t help but follow the steps of the intricate dance that’s being laid out before him. Couldn’t stay away, even if it meant holiness burnt its way through the soles of his shoes. 

None of this could be rushed. Crowley had to learn his way around the intricate moving parts of Aziraphale’s mind that couldn’t be stopped, only worked around, and Aziraphale was working as fast as he possibly could to get around them.

What Crowley needed, in turn, was the reassurance of the holy water - the knowledge that he had a weapon in his arsenal that could do real damage to the agents of Below if worse came to worst. They fought over that, and it nearly broke the delicate thing they had begun. But then Aziraphale showed up with that innocuous-looking little thermos, looking so very nervous and concerned but handing it over nonetheless. 

Crowley had to admit, he’d wondered fleetingly whether Aziraphale was going about learning Crowley’s self, his emotions and needs, with anything like the diligence that Crowley had applied to the subject of Aziraphale. 

Here, Crowley had his answer, in the form of the strangely heavy little thermos held in his hands. And it was yes, Aziraphale was paying attention, and Aziraphale cared, very much.

He took that as encouragement, and maybe pushed a little in his excitement, and in retrospect it had been frankly miraculous that Aziraphale hadn’t shut him down completely. Instead, he’d gotten promises of what would be, if he continued to be patient. 

“We could go for a picnic,” Aziraphale offered. “Dine at the Ritz.”

Crowley appreciated that, he really did. But with this deadly weapon in his hands and all his fears at the forefront, all he wanted right now was to spend just a few more minutes in the company of his angel. So he offered again to drive Aziraphale somewhere. “Anywhere you want to go.”

He knew Aziraphale well enough by now that when the angel said, “You go too fast for me,” he heard the ways in which it wasn’t exactly what Aziraphale meant to say, but also the way it transcended the different levels of what was going on, giving Crowley all the answers he could at the moment. 

Aziraphale was only ever afraid of Crowley’s driving when he was actually afraid of something else.

Crowley could do nothing but let him go.

-⊚-

Things actually went fairly smoothly after that, for a few decades. Every slow step forward was a joy to Crowley. The two of them had eaten at the Ritz a couple of times when the Apocalypse reared its ugly head.

Yes, Crowley had gotten attached to humanity and the world, but their first thought upon being handed the Antichrist had been,  _ Shit, I’m running out of time to get Aziraphale won over. _

They couldn’t help but push a little, then. There wasn’t time for anything else. Unless they  _ made _ more time. Averted the Apocalypse. But that, in itself, was a push. If the two of them were going to have even a little sliver of a chance of stopping it, Aziraphale would need to get over a lot of things very fast that he’d believed for millennia now.

Crowley suggested it anyway.

Aziraphale’s reaction was entirely Aziraphale.

“Get thee behind me, foul fiend,” he said. And then, “After you.”

Crowley knew that on some level, Aziraphale was aware of his own contradictions and was working to reconcile them. The angel still believed the contradictory things. This was a plea for time. 

Crowley would give Aziraphale as much time as they possibly could. But also, they redoubled their efforts to help untangle the mess of beliefs in Aziraphale’s head.

The Apocalypse did make it rather urgent.

Once they’d officially teamed up to do what they could to ensure the world continued to turn, Crowley spent her time as Ashtoreth working double time to learn the next level of the puzzle that was Aziraphale. She had less than a decade to get to a point where Aziraphale might choose Crowley over the will of Heaven. Otherwise, the two of them would be separated, more than likely, for eternity.

-⊚-

As the Apocalypse approached and it became clear that they had not succeeded in doing anything to stop it, the two of them had a whopping great argument, and with potentially no time left to get back in tune with each other, Crowley feared that it might really be the end for them.

Stuff happened. Crowley thought Aziraphale had died, for good, and holed up to drink his way right through the end of the world. Aziraphale showed up, without a body and without a book shop, sounding very much abashed about his failure to see the truth. Crowley punched his way through a ring of hellfire to get to the end of the world, where, as it turned out, the Antichrist was a friendly enough young man who gave Aziraphale his body back before facing down the Horsemen with only his young human friends by his side.

Then Satan Himself was coming to Earth, and nothing they’d done was going to matter, not raising Warlock, not finding Adam, none of it, because if Lucifer wanted an end, who could stop Him?

The ground shook, and there were people all around them, Crowley didn’t know or care exactly who they all were, he just wanted to look at Aziraphale one last time before it all went you-know-where in a handbasket. 

Aziraphale looked back at him, meeting his gaze with a determined strength, and demanded that Crowley not give up.

“Come up with something,” he said, “or… or I’ll never talk to you again.”

Several things fell into place in that moment. Crowley knew that Aziraphale was seeing the same universe that he saw. Flawed and wonderful and complex and full of shades of gray. Crowley understood how much Aziraphale had come to know. Aziraphale clearly understood how much Crowley had come to care. Both about the world, and about Aziraphale. 

They were finally standing on level ground. Meeting on equal terms. Closing the distance so that they could finally, truly touch. And of course it was damn well here and now, at the end of everything.

If only they had had more  _ time _ . Just a  _ moment _ . 

Just a moment. 

Crowley stopped time.

-⊚-

On the bus, Aziraphale sat close beside Crowley. Closer, in fact, than he usually came to Crowley - when they’d been shoulder to shoulder, in the past, it had been Crowley who’d nudged up against Aziraphale.

And they’d certainly never held hands before. Not with no other purpose in mind.

Crowley would have been ecstatic, except that Aziraphale’s hand, when it came to rest in his, was shaking.

He shifted slightly so that he could hold Aziraphale’s properly, tightly, hoping to comfort. “All right?” he asked.

Aziraphale didn’t look at him, and though he opened his mouth to answer, no noise came out. His hand twitched in Crowley’s, tightening his grip slightly.

Of course his angel was falling apart, now, when they had a moment to rest, to process what had happened and what was to come and what had been lost. Aziraphale loved his little routines, cocoa in his favorite mug, visiting the same little bakeries every week, coming back to his bookshop and settling in among his books.

“The bookshop?” Crowley asked, as gently as he knew how. 

Aziraphale leaned against Crowley’s shoulder as some of the tension left his body. After a breath, the words started to flow properly. 

“Not just the book shop. Although that is not helping. It’s… this body. Adam did an excellent job with it. I didn't think I should complain. But it's… not quite the same.”

Crowley considered this for a moment.

“Well, fuck,” he said. 

Aziraphale’s world had been destroyed. All his carefully constructed habits, all his comforts. Not even his body was really his own anymore, apparently. 

“Quite,” Aziraphale agreed. “It feels as if I’m always miscounting the number of steps in a place I know by heart and stumbling over a last one that shouldn’t be there.” He shifted restlessly, until Crowley switched the hand holding Aziraphale’s out for the other so that he could pull the angel tight against his side, and rub a hand up and down his arm, as if to warm him. Aziraphale seemed to relax a little more.

“Anything I can do to help,” Crowley said, “anything at all, just ask.”

There was a long silence, the vibrations of the bus’s wheels on the road the only thing breaking it. Crowley didn’t even think either of them were breathing, not that that posed a real problem, all things considered. 

“Perhaps…” Aziraphale began, and then didn’t continue.

Crowley watched the lights pass by through the windows, and held Aziraphale tightly. He wasn’t supposed to have virtues, but whenever it came to Aziraphale, he found he had patience in abundance, despite himself. 

“No, it’s silly,” Aziraphale barely breathed.

“Come on, out with it,” Crowley said, casual and dry, like he wouldn’t be hanging on every word, coming through them for anything he might be able to do for his angel.

“I was thinking,” the angel said, and his fingers twisted with Crowley’s restlessly as he spoke, “that it might help if you were to groom my wings.”

Oh. 

To touch that place where the ethereal being that was truly Aziraphale met the human body he inhabited… to set that connective tissue in order… it could work.

It would also be… 

“Are you sure?” he asked. “Aziraphale. It's going to be… intense, you do know that?”

Crowley had never shared the experience of wing-grooming with anyone, but when he groomed his own, he thought about it. About Aziraphale. And even that was sometimes a little bit too much.

“Yes,” Aziraphale answered decisively. “And I would like to do the same for you. If that isn't too much for you.”

It nearly was too much, and for the first time, it felt like Aziraphale threatened to go too fast for Crowley. But as Crowley sat there, feeling the rumble of the bus around them and Aziraphale’s warmth pressed against his side, he let himself feel how much he wanted that kind of closeness with Aziraphale. Every time he’d thought about it, while grooming his own wings, he’d pushed it back. Locked it away in the combination safe of his soul. He’d been holding it all back for so long, and it was too much because he wanted it too much. A terrifying amount. 

He wasn’t sure if the little noise he made was audible over the sounds of the bus, but Aziraphale responded as though he’d heard it perfectly, cradling Crowley’s hand in both of his own and rubbing his thumb across Crowley’s knuckles. “Only if you’d like.”

“I would,” Crowley said haltingly. “Very much.”

“Oh, good,” Aziraphale said, in that voice he had that always sounded as if he was trying to come across as placid and reassuring, even when he was too full of too many emotions to come anywhere near it.

It never did fail to make Crowley reassured, though, somehow.

They stayed curled up in each other for the rest of the ride, making not much more noise than breathing, and knowing that they were both readying themselves for something that would change them both. 

Crowley turned his head just enough to brush Aziraphale’s temple with his lips. Not so much kissing, as just… resting them there. 

They would no longer have to worry about the ripples in reality that touching each other on such a fundamental level would cause. Gabriel and Beelzebub had already seen for themselves that the two had chosen each other and the world over Heaven and Hell. This would hardly get them in  _ more _ trouble.

At some point they would have to deal with the trouble they were already  _ in _ , but that would have to wait until Aziraphale was more settled. Right now, this was the most important thing. 

-⊚-

They had to untangle themselves to get off the bus, which felt a bit like dragging oneself out of a soft and comfortable bed far too early in the morning. The hard plastic seats of the bus notwithstanding. At least their fingers stayed intertwined, even as Crowley led the way up the stairs and through his door. 

There was a brief interlude while Aziraphale made a minor fuss over the remains of the holy water on Crowley’s floor, and Crowley excused himself to the kitchen with the excuse that he was putting the kettle on, but mostly he just needed to stand in front of the sink and breathe. Aziraphale was here, in his apartment. Aziraphale had asked Crowley to groom his wings. It was going to be incredibly… well. It was going to be incredible. In one way or another. 

Aziraphale found him there, hands still resting on the sink as the kettle bubbled away, unheeded. He didn’t say anything, just went about making tea for them both. Not because either of them especially wanted to drink it, he thought, but just to fill the space. Just to make things feel slow and steady and normal, while they transitioned from getting-home-from-averting-the-Apocalypse to another reality-shifting event. 

Crowley didn’t know when it was he started needing those things just as much as Aziraphale did. He thought it might have been that moment, on the bus, when Aziraphale had started asking for things to go faster.

No, it had been that moment on the airfield, when he knew Aziraphale had caught up. 

No, before that. 

Crowley was a demon, he wasn’t allowed to want order and normalcy and kindness and peace. And yet he’d been drawn to Aziraphale, a bright beacon of all those things, from the very beginning.

Like a moth to a flame. 

Just as Crowley had been working away at revealing Aziraphale’s capacity for independent thought, so Aziraphale had been working away at revealing Crowley’s capacity for independent feeling.

He wanted this. He’d always wanted this. Not just the closeness, but the…  _ domesticity _ ? Was that the word? It was hard to say, when he’d wanted it since before houses were invented.

The gentle clinking noise of a cup on a saucer right by his elbow brought him back to the physical plane.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale’s gentlest voice said. 

“Hmm,” Crowley answered. He half-turned, half-smiled, still with his sunglasses on even though he was home and safe and about to reveal far more of himself than his physical eyes were capable of doing. But his fingers brushed Aziraphale’s quite intentionally as he took the offered cup of tea. 

_ Let me have my shields just a little longer. _

“Where shall we sit?” Aziraphale asked.

He’d been here before, at least a couple of times, and was quite aware that the only truly comfortable seating to be had in the entire apartment was in the bedroom, where a sofa sat against the foot of the raised platform of the bed. He’d been in there to experience it for himself. But Aziraphale was offering distance, the chance to sit on the hard little stylish bar stools in the kitchen or the high-backed monstrosities in the front room, and pretend they weren’t everything to each other for just a little while longer.

Crowley took a breath. “Come on,” he said, leading the way to the bedroom. “You know the good spot as well as I do.”

They sat side-by-side on the soft gray sofa, listening to the quiet of the nighttime apartment, and they drank their tea slowly. When Crowley’s was finished, he put the cup down on the little side table (barely more than a minimalist black cube) and reached to tangle his hand with Aziraphale’s again. 

Aziraphale let out a breath, a sigh of contentment tinged with relief, and vanished his own cup with a gesture. 

“You ready?” Crowley asked. 

“Almost,” said Aziraphale, and turned his whole body towards Crowley, all his attention. Crowley did his best not to slide sideways, as he tended to do, make a joke to serve as a shield or pretend this wasn’t important on even the most surface of levels. He faced up to it, even taking off his sunglasses and setting them next to his cup.

Aziraphale leaned forward just slightly and lifted the hand that wasn’t grasping Crowley’s own, and settled it, warm and soft, on Crowley’s cheek. “There we are,” he said. 

Crowley felt himself smile, and vaguely wondered how he was managing it. He felt a mess. 

“There we are,” he echoed. He turned his head to kiss Aziraphale’s palm. “All right,” he said. “You face forward, and I’ll hop up.” He patted the foot of the bed, and then slithered up into position, so that Aziraphale sat between his feet. “Whenever you’re ready,” he said.

Aziraphale glanced back and up, just once, as if to make sure Crowley was really there, and then he faced forward again and gave himself a little shake. And then, quite suddenly and yet not suddenly at all, his wings were there, in the physical plane. 

Crowley was always aware of them, to one extent or another. They were part of Aziraphale. They were implied by the angel’s existence, like the second half of an old saying that one cannot help but hear in one’s head when the first half is spoken. But he’d never touched them, hadn’t even come close since that first day in Eden. He swallowed. His hands curled nearly into fists, and then uncurled again. 

The sweep of white feathers on each side was incredibly beautiful. He wanted to touch. Aziraphale was waiting for him to touch. So he reached out. 

They were so… so soft.

Crowley hated to be trite, but touching Aziraphale's wings was like touching a cloud. Or at least, the way one imagined touching a cloud would be, before one learned it was no more and no less than unrelenting humidity and low visibility, with perhaps a slight drizzle.

This… he would use the word  _ heavenly _ , if he didn’t know exactly how far short that fell. 

Aziraphale had gasped softly, when his fingers had first made contact. But he hadn’t moved away, and now he was actively leaning into Crowley’s touch, burying Crowley’s fingers in the soft downy white feathers just past the junction of wing and shoulder.

Crowley made a noise, then, and he’d deny it was a whine, it had really been a sort of hum, perhaps, but there wasn’t any point in denying, was there, that he felt unutterably welcomed into the essence of Aziraphale’s being and that it was more than he’d ever dared to imagine. 

He tentatively spread his fingers, trying to get a feel for the organization of the feathers and the structure underneath, trying to orient himself so he could begin doing something useful, instead of just letting his fingers drift through the whisper-softness of the down. 

“No need to hurry,” Aziraphale said, somewhat breathlessly, as if he could tell Crowley was attempting to get on with things just by that twitch of his fingers. “I like… just that. Just you, touching my wings. And we have all night.” He trailed off slightly, as if he might have meant to say something more, but Crowley had already taken what he’d said as an invitation to let his fingers wander down through the smaller, downy feathers across Aziraphale’s back joints, and Crowley could picture the expression on his face clearly, though he couldn’t see it, one of closed eyes and just barely opened mouth, of relaxed but intense delight.

Crowley wondered if his ability to picture the expression was due to the fact that he was carding his fingers through the strands of Aziraphale’s essence, feeling it, or if he just knew the angel that well by this point. 

He supposed it was probably a little of both, really.

In any case, he continued, indulging himself - indulging both of them - with long, slow sweeps of his fingers across the softest surfaces of the wings, finding Aziraphale’s downiest spots exactly where he would expect to.

The act of grooming progressed so naturally from there, even though Aziraphale’s wings felt so different from his own. Crowley found he knew where to reach to find the bigger feathers, still velvety smooth but not as fluffy, how to put each of them in order and smooth them into place. 

Underneath, there was wiry strength. It was as if he’d been built out of titanium and then covered in a feather bed. This was exactly what Aziraphale’s wings should be like, Crowley thought, and was pleased at how far they'd gotten inside each other's skins already.

He hoped it was helping, that Aziraphale was settling into his new skin. “Better?” he asked. 

“Hmm,” Aziraphale murmured contentedly. “Yes, but keep on, anyway, if you wouldn’t mind.”

Ah. 

“How far?” he asked, trying not to sound too strangled. 

“You’ll be able to feel it if I get uncomfortable,” Aziraphale reminded him, the fondest of smiles audible in his voice, and yes, there to feel in his wings, as well. 

_ If. _

That was a word.  _ If _ , not _ when _ .

Crowley was full of a sense of wonder too big to contain. He did the only thing he could think of to let that wonder grow. He set his own wings free, and they materialized with the softest rustle. 

Aziraphale hummed happily.

Crowley continued to run his fingers through Aziraphale's feathers, but that was simply a physical background for things that were happening beyond the realm of human eyes. He turned his head slightly, and opened the eyes of the snake aspect which sat in front of his right ear.

The wings looked the same, of course, and they were all that would have looked different if they hadn’t been so in tune right now, but now, he could see those glowing rings he had always imagined Aziraphale being made of, spinning one within another. They were so beautiful. 

He touched the outside edge and felt vibrations running through it, like music, like the reverberation of bells. He wanted to get even closer to Aziraphale’s core, reach for the center point, but he didn’t know how. The motion of his hands stilled.

“Your turn,” Aziraphale told him then, guiding Crowley down to sit in his place. He barely registered the motion of their corporations, he was so caught up in staring at Aziraphale. 

“May I?” Aziraphale asked, and Crowley didn’t fully register what he meant, but nodded anyway because Aziraphale could have anything from him. And then Aziraphale’s fingers brushed his wings. 

He stopped breathing for a long moment, just trying to hold all these new sensations in his mind. Aziraphale’s fingers on his feathers were so gentle, so Goddamned tender, he wanted to cry. Aziraphale didn’t touch him often. When he did, it was always gentle. But when those fingers were combing through his feathers, Crowley could feel exactly how mindful, how caring the motions were. 

Not something a demon deserved, he thought, and then Aziraphale shushed him softly, as if he’d heard the thought. Maybe he had, the same way Crowley had been able to see those expressions.

“They’re like silk,” Aziraphale commented as he worked. “So much softer than they look. Like a sleek black cat. All elegance and predatory skill until you get close enough to scratch under its chin.”

Crowley honestly did not have the presence of mind to be offended by that. But he still managed to quip, “Pet many black leopards, have you?”

“Not since the Garden,” Aziraphale answered. “I wondered then if they would feel like this.” His hands continued to arrange and smooth Crowley’s feathers in that wonderfully careful way.

“You…  _ then _ ?” Crowley asked.

“I thought they were a purposeful temptation,” the angel told him, and Crowley could feel his embarrassment vibrating in the aether around them. “I didn’t know then that it’s very nearly impossible to change the characteristics of one’s wings.”

Crowley… let himself sink into the emotions that caused in him, good humor and comfort and safety, peace, just a feeling of Aziraphale himself, surrounding him. 

“Oh, my dear,” Aziraphale said in a hushed tone. “May I?”

Crowley turned his head to the right far enough to see that the glowing rings that made up Aziraphale’s essence were looking at him. Crowley’s wings had been set in order now, every last feather stroked into shape and tucked into place. He didn’t know what Aziraphale saw, but he supposed there was only one way to find out. 

“Yes,” he answered. 

The angel reached out with fingers that were not quite trembling, but there was reverent hesitance in every line of the motion. He touched a ribbon of light that was somehow red, purple, black, and white all at once, and Crowley felt the contact all through him. 

He lost track of their bodies, after that. 

The important thing was that he was a richly-colored ribbon of soul stuff, brushing the edges of Aziraphale’s spinning rings of soul stuff. He rubbed himself up against Aziraphale like - okay, yes, like a cat, leaning into contact with fluid grace and affection. Or like the horsehair strands of a bow pushing against the vibrating metal of the strings of a cello. 

The vibrations that resulted were deep, and they filled the aether around the two, and it wasn’t something Crowley was particularly worrying about at the moment but they could surely be heard from as far away as Above or Below right now.

Everything about this was familiar, despite all the ways in which it was new. They knew each other well enough by now to anticipate each other’s emotions and to take comfort in each other’s souls. 

Crowley still wanted them to know each other more deeply. And this time, when he reached out towards Aziraphale, to that sphere of spinning rings, he did it as a ribbon of dark light, a slim, darting piece of soul stuff. 

Finding his way through the rings without interfering with their spinning. Finding each joint, each axel, and adjusting to its motion before sliding to the next. Plastering his soul stuff against each shining ring until he could feel everything that Aziraphale felt. The whole dizzying mass of it. 

Love.

Oh, love. 

From in here, the world was a spinning mess of it. Human love, love of all kinds. Bright and shining and warm. But Aziraphale was brighter, to Crowley. So very warm. 

Crowley would have discorporated with the strength of it, if he weren’t already extended so far outside of his physical body. And still he wanted more of it. 

The holy core of Aziraphale burned at his center like the sun, and Crowley could only just brush it with the feathered end of himself. He was going to come away singed, but he didn’t care. 

The feeling of Aziraphale’s emotions around him changed just a little, then. Not sour, like discomfort or regret, as he’d feared would happen much sooner than this. But just a simple sweet  _ hush _ , a feeling of  _ enough now, please, just here is perfect _ .

The singing of the glowing rings changed then, so Crowley could feel/hear the steel following the softness. Crowley would not be allowed to hurt himself on that holy flame. And it was Aziraphale’s turn to find his way inside of Crowley’s soul.

The colors were like layers, like bands of an aura, and as Aziraphale’s rings sang to them, Crowley could feel each of them, vividly and in turn, black as shadow, red as blood, white as bone, and on through purple into ultraviolet. 

The hollow something/nothing of that ultraviolet core would eat away at Aziraphale if they let it, so they didn’t. 

_ Enough. Here. _

_ Here we are. _

They were made of contentedness. Of love and of peace and of mischief and of questions and of darkness and of light.

One being with four wings.

They rested in each other for a time, a time without meaningful length because it was infinite in so many other ways. But then it was time to stretch, to come apart, become themselves again.

The snake’s eyes closed, and then Crowley’s human eyes, too. 

Crowley lay on the sofa with his head in Aziraphale’s lap, and Aziraphale’s fingers stroked absently through his hair. The silence of the apartment was profound. Crowley thought he could hear his plants whispering amongst themselves about What Had Just Happened. He wondered idly what conclusions they would come to. 

The angel’s focus was no longer fully on him, either - part of it had drifted elsewhere.

“What are you thinking, angel?” he asked softly.

“I think,” said Aziraphale, “there might be a way to deflect both our superiors from punishing us for stopping the apocalypse.” 

“Really?” Crowley drawled. He sat up, then, turning to face Aziraphale. “Do tell.” He didn’t want to get his hopes up, but then, it was probably too late. Anything seemed possible, just now.

Aziraphale’s eyes were caught between solemnity and a sparkling interest in whatever idea he’d caught hold of. 

“I had an idea about what Agnes Nutter’s last prophecy might mean for us,” he said. “If we are facing holy water, which seems the logical response to your actions, and hellfire, as Agnes implied, then… well. It seemed nonsensical when I thought of it first, because even if we were to switch physical bodies, agents of Above and Below would still be able to tell which of us was which.”

Crowley raised his eyebrows as he caught the edge of the idea, as well. “Because of our wings. They wouldn’t neglect to look for the one thing that can identify us on sight, without fail.”

“As far as they know,” Aziraphale agreed. The corners of his mouth threatened to creep up.

Crowley took both Aziraphale’s hands in his. “Tell me, Angel. Tell me how we manage this.”

Aziraphale’s voice went low and pensive. “If we're going to get away with this, we're going to have to do more than wear each other's bodies. We would have to wear each other's wings.”

“Can we?” Crowley asked. “Is it even possible?”

"I think it might be," Aziraphale answered. "But we would need to be… as close as that, intertwined, the entire time. We would need to be aware of the shapes of the other. If one of us closed off from the other, even for a moment, we could be discorporated, or worse."

Crowley closed his eyes, blew out a breath. If they were right about their respective punishments, this wouldn’t do any worse to them, but then, it was always possible they were wrong.

“I trust you,” he told Aziraphale. “I’d trust you with my wings for as long as it takes. Would you trust me with yours?”

“Utterly,” Aziraphale said. 

“Well, that’s all right, then,” said Crowley.

And it was.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope that worked! I don't think I've ever written anything quite like... whatever that was.
> 
> I love comments! It's likely I won't have the spoons to reply to most of them, though, and I don't consider them necessary. But if you have questions, I love to answer them! That doesn't take spoons for some obscure my-autistic-brain reason.
> 
> I'm on tumblr as qwanderer and irenewendywode if you wanna hang there!


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